The immediate reason I’m starting this blog is to fulfill a
requirement for a course on Religion & Media I’m taking this week at Gettysburg
Seminary. I'm a senior in pursuit of a Master of Divinity degree. After graduation in May, I hope to be called to a congregation and ordained as a pastor in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA).
A little about the course: we've just started this afternoon, and the first session was well-worth the treacherous walk across campus from my dorm to the classroom (it's quite icy here). The course is a week-long intensive, and we'll be exploring religion/theology and its engagement with media (digital, social, and otherwise). How are you currently using media? If you are part of a faith community, how are they (you!) using media? If you could increase media usage, what might that look like?
I have to be honest, sometimes my first reaction to the combination of religion and media is a sort-of grimace. My number one rule of the internet is "Don't read the comments," and this seems to be an especially important rule when the comments in question have to do with religion. Too often, media is used as a way to spread a very limited view of religion, and it seems that people's brains fall right out of the back of their heads when it comes time to post comments on any sort of article. So, I hope to come away from this course with new optimism about the ways religion and media can have a really positive relationship. And, if media, most basically, is a tool, I hope also to broaden my skills and more faithfully engage with media in all its varieties.
Aside from the course, my appreciation for the written word is such that I've often thought of taking time to start a blog. With the motivation from this course to get started, my goal will be to continue the motivation even after next Saturday when the course ends. I hope to occasionally post sermons, along with interesting articles and other bits and pieces of life. Thanks for joining me!
Since it's for a class (and I love talking about stuff like this), and I like helping out people I like, and it'll hopefully make you super cool because you'll have a regular participant, here I go:
ReplyDeleteBackground: I use social media in the following ways: Facebook for both myself and congregations, Twitter and Instagram for myself; I maintain a blog for both myself and the congregation.
What I've learned: Using social media takes A LOT of time....mainly in tending to it. I'm learning that it's a great way to pass information, but it's very hard to get people to engage in sharing/responding.
However, on the information piece: When you touch upon ideologies - whether political or religious - then comments and participation will abound. And this is the problem with social media. Because it will always lack the personal element of communication (despite people's best attempts to make it so) wars will always ensue. The result is dehumanization because defense of ideology without the personal amount to this.
But here's where I like social media, and where I like to think deeply about it: how is it a tool? And to do that we have to think of it in terms of how it tends and builds elements of our spiritual, congregational, and faith lives: How does social media serve evangelism? Community? Worship? Mission? Stewardship? What is it communicating theologically to people, both in it's content, and both in the way social media communicates? (Are we trying to replace the personal element or using it to encourage it?)
Ok, just some ramblings....but will keep following because I want to know what you're learning!
Aaron! Thanks for following along! Your point about the direction of the information flow is an interesting one. Do you find that folks in your congregations who are engaged in social media share/respond in other areas? I mean, is it just "church stuff" they're not interested in talking about, or are they fairly passive in other arenas within social media?
DeleteAlso, I think recognizing that social media (and really any media) is a tool is profoundly helpful. Like any tool, it can be used well or poorly, and we get out of it what we put in to it.
I think this class will be especially interesting for me as well. I am always skeptical of how social media can cause us to interact with others are we using it to broaden our understanding? Stay connected with friends? Or are we using it as an excuse not to socialize and ignore each other's physical presence? I hope to gain a better appreciation for social media from this class as well as to see how the media portrays religion in the news and how that effects the global communities perception about who Christians are.
ReplyDeleteNikki, your point about perception about who Christians are is an important one. Often, it's folks on the extremes who take the time to comment, which can skew perceptions, or lead to especially polarizing comments. I wonder if perhaps more moderate folks ought to be making a commitment to commenting more, or if ignoring the comments entirely is okay.
DeleteThank you for your honesty in your hesitations about religion and media. I have to say that although I'm on just about every form of social media, either for myself or my church or work, I've take the stand that transparency is best. I also have the, what some would term 'American' view point, in that just as I have every right to post my thoughts/feelings, the public or my friends have that same right to post or comment on these same thoughts/feelings. But I hit post or view with one eye closed!
ReplyDeleteNicole, that's a really good point about freedom of speech/our 'American' viewpoint - I wonder how we might encourage the sharing of diverse views/thoughts/feelings with an eye toward respectful discourse.
DeleteI wonder how to support good practices of commenting, and discourage painful/flaming practices. Some digital communities have figured this out, but it often takes a long time, and new members have to be "apprenticed" into the practices.
ReplyDeleteDr. Hess, I hope so! Commenting/encouraging dialogue is valuable, but that value is lost when we have to spend too much time sifting through inflammatory/unhelpful comments. I'm part of a large Facebook group that includes some "ground rules" for conversation, and it seems helpful for this to be named and accessible for all the participants. In especially heated conversations, occasionally someone will refer back to the ground rules as a friendly reminder to everyone, which is fairly well-received.
DeleteKerri: I share your concerns about the manner in which civil discourse can take place in the arena of social media. I feel that some of what happens is just the nature of human beings (the simul justus et peccator thing...) As an example, I'm in a Facebook closed group that consists of over 16K people. It's for people who are using a particular add-on to Facebook that is provided free (though the developer invites contributions.) The add-on allows one to "manage" how Facebook looks in one's web browser. Within the past several months, Facebook decided to "ban" the developer unless he removed some particular functionality from his code. He ultimately removed it and was allowed to keep his extension and web site going. Every so often, someone comments "where is the friend tracker?" and the admins calmly point out the post that describes the "negotiation" the developer had with Facebook about removing that functionality. A number of people say "that's the only reason I used this add-on" and they have an air of entitlement about something for which they have paid no money to use. Then, after a round of comments, the admins write "THIS THREAD IS CLOSED TO FURTHER COMMENTS" and that often triggers comments that the admins are "rude." It would seem to me that if I'm using something that is "free" that someone else has developed, that person has no obligation to add or remove a function that I might want.
ReplyDeleteThe part about creating spaces where all have access to internet is an intriguing way to open relationships and create community. I think it is an interesting trend that we are moving towards with cell phones and internet being much more of a need than a convenience. I think it is interesting how this makes our communities exclusionary in some ways without intension. I wonder what creating spaces like this would do to transform our communities and how those who are in and out would change.
ReplyDelete